NOTE FROM SHEILA: I asked my brother Brendan, who is a wonderful writer, to recount in words an experience he had in France - something I remember him telling me, in vivid detail at the time (it was years ago) ... and I have never forgotten it. Not just because it's a great story, but because of how Brendan told it. He made me feel like I was there. And beyond that: I could get the importance of the moment - not just because I was a huge fan of the band in question as well, but because I knew Brendan, and I knew his journey with music, which was always quite singular and his own (up until this point, I mean). Brendan covered a bit of that in the essay he wrote about The Replacements. Anyway, I was going to tell the following story myself - but then thought: no no no, have Bren write it. So I asked him. And a couple days later I received the essay, which I have since read no less than 10 times. And I still feel the hugeness of the moment, for my brother.
And more than that: I just love how he tells the damn story. (I mean: "two-headed hydra of searing punk rock, The Replacements and Husker Du")? Come on. It's just awesome. Also I love his description of one band: "took on ‘important’ issues like racism, sexism, and ‘the-world-doesn’t-understand-our-mohawks-ism’." hahahaha
Enjoy. Whether or not you feel the same passion for the bands Brendan mentions is irrelevant. That's not what this is about. I think we all can relate to such a story as the one below, those of us who are passionate about art, music, writing, movies - whatever ... those moments when the top of your head blows off as you realize what has not just become possible, but what already IS possible because it's already happened.
My brother describes just such a moment as that.
Quelle Chanson, Non?
by Brendan O'Malley
My fifth year of college (!) was spent abroad in Orleans, France at L’Universite d’Orleans. Up until that point, I’d lived in Rhode Island all my life. From the time I was 15 until that year my main contact with the world outside of Little Rhody was through various punk rock bands.
This is what ’83 to ’91 looked like for me…
7Seconds were from out West and toured relentlessly, singing melodic breakneck hardcore punk that thematically took on ‘important’ issues like racism, sexism, and ‘the-world-doesn’t-understand-our-mohawks-ism’.
Minor Threat were from D.C. and not as upbeat as 7Seconds. They were more attuned to the forces that lay behind the ills of society and therefore less inclined to sing passionately about being able to change it. They later morphed into Fugazi, another of my all-time favs.
The Midwest was represented by a two-headed hydra of searing punk rock, The Replacements and Husker Du. The Replacements were the ill-advised Thursday night booze-off before a big test and Husker Du was the all-night study session for a political science exam that devolves into a meth-fueled rage against some machine.
All these bands were connected to other lesser lights. Before the internet, there was DIY (Do It Yourself) punk rock. They started their own record labels, they printed their own LP’s, they drew their own posters. They toured the country in vans sleeping on the couches of their biggest fans.
Rolling Stone didn’t write about them, radio wouldn’t touch them with an any length foot pole, MTV was already in the business of creating megastars, and the majority of the public winced at anything that was LOUD. I vividly remember playing a Replacements song for a friend of mine in high school. This guy was a musician, a guitar player who liked heavy metal for Pete’s sake, but he simply COULD NOT HEAR THE SONG. All he heard was noise.
This scene would be replayed throughout the late ‘80’s for me, both in high school and in my first few years in college. I had my circle of like-minded friends. There were four of us. Tom, Justin, Joe, moi. We were occasionally a band, but more often than not we were intense spectators. To be a fan of this music meant a certain level of danger. Concerts were rag-tag affairs in which the crowd threw itself against itself as ferociously as possible. There were violent elements who were attracted to this kind of freedom and we often found ourselves rescuing punk maidens from slam-dance circles and avenging uncalled for elbows with punches. Skinheads, completely missing the point, weren’t dancing so much as they were trolling for conflict. Depending on our mood, we either gave it to them or didn’t.
Outside the shows this underground element would collide with ‘normal’ American life. The leeriness of capitalism was astounding. The feeling of ‘us vs. them’ was overwhelming. Restaurants would refuse to serve you. Store owners would deny you their products. Business owners would REFUSE YOUR MONEY. I could romanticize that whole aspect as having added some level of enjoyment, but to be honest, it just sucked. I had thousands of ‘what is the deal with THAT’ conversations with my co-conspirators. The justifications we concocted on behalf of our oppressors could never quite be pinned down into any certain set of criteria. Suffice it to say, we were, by definition, outsiders.
Did this status affect my view of said mainstream? In other words, was I as much of a douchebag to the world as the world was a douchebag to me? Of course not. I bought ‘Thriller’ like everyone else. I rocked out to Van Halen’s ‘Runnin’ With The Devil’. I lusted over Sade. I never cared for Madonna, but I didn’t SPIT at people who did. I even had some classic rock in the collection. My tastes ran towards punk rock but I could appreciate Duran Duran, perhaps the weirdest boy band ever. And Prince was from Minneapolis like my other two favorite bands. What wasn’t there to like about Prince?
But my open-mindedness was definitely not reciprocated. For some reason the music that meant the most to me was not just disliked, it was seen as a threat.
So, college happened in there somewhere. In between punk rock concerts, I did a ton of plays at the wonderful University of Rhode Island theater department. I had a series of disastrous relationships and abused alcohol. I HAD A BLAST.
I kept three majors. Theater, English, and French. My youthful enjoyment of Inspector Clouseau had improbably turned into a major. Thus everything about my French studies seemed vaguely comedic to me. The opportunity to live in France for a year was going to be a laugh riot. I’d completed 4 full years of college and only needed 9 credits to graduate. 5 classes per semester equals 15 credits, so you do the math. Over the course of my two semesters in France, I only needed to do less than one semester of work. France was in trouble, people.
That summer wasn’t exactly a victory lap of an exit. I got Lyme’s Disease and went through a horrific breakup. I left the country an emotional wreck and very unhealthy. In fact, I took the last of my antibiotics right before I got on the plane, hoping they’d done their work. I invested in an expensive CD Walkman and a small set of speakers. I brought two notebooks of CD’s with me, perhaps 20 of my favorites.
My first couple of months in France were primarily recuperative. I went to classes with my other Foreign Exchange students, I ate pleasant dinners with my host family, I went to every movie in town to get used to listening to French when I didn’t have to respond. I read in my little dorm room. I ate the same meal twice a day at the cafeteria. Slowly the language unfurled itself to me and social situations became bearable.
Two of my American friends had joined a local American football team and made some French friends. This was what I was after. Instead of hanging out with my classmates, other non-French speaking foreigners, I began hanging out primarily with French people. But America was about to reach out to me.
The campus of L’Universite d’Orleans is a 20 minute bus ride outside of the city of Orleans. We all began to spend far more time in the city and very little on campus. On one of these excursions, we stopped in at FNAC. FNAC (said as one word by the French, hilarious) was the French version of Tower Records. In a ‘holy shit I feel old’ side note, Tower recently disappeared off of the face of the planet.
I’d been in France a couple of months and I’d yet to buy any music, preferring instead to start smoking. So I wasn’t all that into going to FNAC, to be honest. I loitered, looking at French chicks.
And then a song came on over the in-store stereo system.
I AM NOT EXAGGERATING ANYTHING THAT FOLLOWS.
My memory of this moment is like one of those long unbroken movie shots…the camera starts up in the very highest corner of the store. The song begins and slowly the camera begins to swoop, capturing the silly French fashions, the funny haircuts, the multi colored crazily buttoned jackets, the pointy shoes, late ‘80’s American culture reappropriated back to Europe and funneled inappropriately into Mass Appeal. The focus of the shot narrows in on the face of an obviously American post-teen. As the music builds, the camera nears his face as his mouth opens, his toes tap, his head bounces. He is obviously AMAZED at this sound. The sound obliterates everything else.
The camera stays in close up. The song ends. The next voice you hear you have to try to imagine a little bit. Do you remember the morning rock DJ in your town? Do you remember the inherent utter hyperbole in their speech? Now cross that with Inspector Clouseau…
‘Eh, mes amis, quelle chanson, non? C’etait le Number One des Etats Unis, la nouvelle son de…”
Interjection: Did I just hear him say that was the Number One song in the United States? When I flew out of Logan Airport, the number one song was ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’ by Bryan Adams. It had just replaced ‘Rush Rush’ by Paula Abdul. Those were the big hits of the summer. Think about that for a second.
Cut back to gape-mouthed post-teen…
“…la nouvelle son de Nirvana! Smells Like Teen Spirit de l’album Nevermind.”
Dropping the camera metaphor, I could barely believe what I’d been hearing. I tore over to the Rock section and found Nirvana. Sold out. I had heard of them after they put out their ‘Bleach’ album in 1989 but I hadn’t bought the album and knew very little about them. I was almost angry. That song was Number One??? What the hell was going on back there???? I turn my back for one second and all of a sudden everyone can handle loud music??? Not only can they handle it, but it is THE MOST POPULAR SONG IN THE COUNTRY????
I seriously thought about getting on a plane and flying back to the States.
Imagine you work for a political candidate, Mr. So-and-so. You’ve been tirelessly campaigning for years. You’ve poured your heart and soul into a race that people seem ambivalent about at best. By some fluke, you are on a deserted island when the actual voting takes place. Your isolation makes you wonder what ever compelled you to get involved in politics in the first place. A plane flies overhead. Instead of rescuing you, it drops a newspaper on your head. The headline says, “So-and-So Elected in a Landslide!”
I’d spent the better part of ten years catching flak for how loud and out of control my tastes were, how what I liked was actually an affront to decent American consumerism, and that such a horrific assault on art and sound was everything that was wrong with the youth of today.
Bryan Adams was considered a ROCK STAR. Huey Lewis (god love ‘im) was a ROCK STAR. Now, I have nothing against either of these guys, but…come on. ROCK STARS? I don’t think so. Rock stars scare people. David Bowie is a ROCK STAR. Mick Jagger is a ROCK STAR. They scared people! They might even have slept together just to show the world they could do whatever they wanted! ROCK STARS change how people view the world.
I have never felt such a sensation of vertigo as I did that day in that French record store. One listen of that song and I knew that NOTHING would be the same when I got back to America. Name another song that could truthfully make such a claim.
One final note. I only got 8 credits and had to take another class when I got back Stateside. C’est la vie!
Posted by sheila | TrackBackGreat story Brendan! I was in DC when Minor Threat was popular and a friend of my roommate was friends with one of the guys from Fugazi (although sorry I can't remember which - I just remember he always asked me about movies). My roommates friend had a mix tape of punk bands doing mainstream songs that kind of proved, I guess, that their songs were just as melodic and when you took a "normal" song and punked it up it could still turn "normal" people off.
Anyway, I remember thinking by the late eighties that all that music was dead and gone so I was shocked as well by the success of grunge. And pleasantly pleased.
Posted by: Jonathan Lapper at January 22, 2008 10:59 AMAwesome post, Brendan.
Punk in L.A. during the 80s was very snobbish - and very factioned. Surf punks versus city punks (I was the former, had to be because of my ZIP code) and punks versus goths and punks versus heshers (there was an actual WAR going on between punks and heavy metalers on Hollywood Boulevard during those days. How @#%ing stupid is that?!?!?). And basically, punks versus everybody. We were kind of like a cult in the sense that we thought we were better than everyone else. In short, we were a-holes. Not just to outsiders, but even to each other. Some of it was a reaction to the negativity we received. Now that I'm a little grown up, I'm wondering if the negativity wasn't provoked (with the exception of the douchebag staff of ReStyle in Hermosa Beach...you know the type...the chick with the purple hair and nose ring who ironically stares down at you for your "conformity" because YOU don't have purple hair and a nose ring too).
Anyway, after "Smells Like Teen Spirit" kicked open the door for bands like...well, everybody you hear on grunge-lite-punk-rock-on-retard-pills radio these days, there was something very, very rewarding in coming home and seeing people who used to make fun of me for my clothes and music back in high school dressing the same way I had outgrown.
Posted by: Emily at January 22, 2008 11:24 AMMy musical philosophy has always held that there is no genre that can be overlooked. It might not be your favorite, but there will be genius. I don't care what genre you're talking about.
Well, New Age? Maybe they haven't had their genius yet...
On one of The Clash tours, they had Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five open up for them. If you had an ounce of brains in your head, you would transfer your respect for The Clash to their choice for an opening act, right? Of course that wasn't the case. Many people embraced the choice, but a whole slew of meatheads had to hold on to their rap vs. rock prejudice.
Posted by: Brendan at January 22, 2008 1:13 PMBrilliant. I can see why you had him tell it, Sheila. Oh, and I love the lines: "I had a series of disastrous relationships and abused alcohol. I HAD A BLAST."
I had a damn-I'm-old Nirvana related moment a month or so ago when the drippy "soft rock" station that my coworker plays every so often put on something familiar (that I could only hear faintly) and I walked into her office to learn that they had added Nirvana's All Apologies to their playlist.
From underground dives to pervasive top 40 to over the hill soft rock - In two quick decades.
Posted by: Marisa at January 22, 2008 1:21 PMAnd thanks for the nice comments on my essay. Very appreciated.
I would have loved to have been in LA for the punk scene or DC...sort of what my post is about, having to live vicariously through these bands.
Posted by: Brendan at January 22, 2008 1:21 PMI think my favorite bit is the analogy with the desert island. That made me laugh out loud the first time I read it.
I just love the story!!
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 1:32 PMOh, and just to add to this: Tori Amos did a cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" - back when Little Earthquakes came out. It's quiet, just her and her piano. But she had a similar thing happen to her that Bren describes - she was doing a tour of tiny clubs (this was before Little Earthquakes came out and made her a mega-star) - and she was in Reykjavik, Iceland - and she heard this song on the radio which completely captivated her. She didn't even know what the lyrics were - but the song itself just resonated for her. once she heard the lyrics she knew she had to cover it.
She also felt - in a weird cosmic way (you know, cause she's Tori Amos): "Okay, if there's room for THAT to be #1, then there will be room for me."
And of course there was! Pretty wild.
Also, in light of the subject matter - the big thing that haunts me of late is the surge of vanilla ready-made wannabe punk. I find myself lecturing my niece a'la "When I was your age we walked ten miles in the snow."
...except it's "When I was your age we made our OWN clothes or went to the Goodwill and if there was a hole or a safety pin in something it was because WE put it there! It was about being an individual not a carbon copy of some other so-called individual! WE would never have confused Avril (expletive) Lavigne for punk! The music we loved had balls!!" and I go on a bit and then I say "AAAARRRG!" and stew a bit and her eyes glaze over and I realize she has no idea what I'm talking about and feel really very old.
sigh.
Posted by: Marisa at January 22, 2008 1:40 PMI know. Avril Lavigne. hahaha I like some of her songs - but punk??? Please.
Makes me feel really old, too.
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 1:42 PMListen, whippersnapper Coldplay fans, in my day, there was no such place as Hot Topic. You would sooner find a dead cat for sale at a mall than a store that sold a t-shirt with an anarchy symbol on the front.
Yep, me too...
Posted by: Emily at January 22, 2008 1:52 PMHa!!!
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 1:53 PMBrendan, it was the 1981 Clash Tour in Europe and it went both ways. Some venues offered up more respect than others but according to Flash himself in an old Time interview from years ago it was their look, rather than their sound that was off-putting to the Clash audiences. They would emerge in total pimped out fashion whereas the Clash would just have on some old clothes. So Flash decided while they were in Europe they were just going to wear jeans and t-shirts and baseball caps on stage. Once they did the receptiveness improved greatly. And they inadvertantly led the way for rappers like Chuck D.and Ice Cube to dress down instead of glittering up.
Posted by: Jonathan Lapper at January 22, 2008 1:55 PMHee hee. I love this debate. Old vs. new and all that.
I don't think that any music can/should be judged by anything other than merit. Which is totally subjective, of course. As far as I'm concerned, I really don't care what you like if you can articulate why. If your reasons come from conformity to some style/genre/fashion, you bore me.
If you can honestly say something moves you, I'll give it to you. Now, I'm never going to like Creed, but I'll forgive you for your indiscretion.
Posted by: Brendan at January 22, 2008 2:00 PMJonathan - very cool!!
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 2:01 PMEmily -
In reference to Coldplay:
"You know how I know you're gay??"
Ha!
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 2:05 PM"You would sooner find a dead cat for sale at a mall than a store that sold a t-shirt with an anarchy symbol"
Hilarious.
Oh and Brendan - It was always nice to have some decent guys there to drag you out from underfoot when the angry weenies (who weren't really there for the music anyway) got going, so: Thanks for that.
Posted by: Marisa at January 22, 2008 2:11 PMI think every genre has it's own merits and it's own geniuses. I just don't like something being marketed using the appearance of another genre or movement in order to entice an uneducated audience.
Posted by: Marisa at January 22, 2008 2:24 PMYou are welcome!
I also think that the people who are buying into pre-packaged rebellion music are the same types who bought into the bullshit hedonistic misogyny of hair bands and the vapidity of the pop scene at the advent of MTV.
The real rebellious music is nothing like that now. I am probably too old to even know what it sounds like. But I would never discount it at the feet of nostalgia.
Posted by: Brendan at January 22, 2008 2:26 PMI watched Death Proof last night - and there's a great scene where Kurt Russell (who plays an evil stuntman whose actual name is "Stuntman Mike") tells a gaggle of young girls, all about 22, 23 years old, the trajectory of his career. He mentions all these old names and TV shows ... people I certainly remember - Robert Urich and others - , Stuntman Mike mentions other early 60s,70s car-crash movies, old television series ... and if you're of a certain age, even if you didn't WATCH the shows, you certainly would have heard of them! And so he's going on and on (his resume is so long, he just keeps talking) and he finally realizes something ... and says, "You girls haven't heard of ANY of these people, have you?"
They all shake their heads.
It's not a snotty moment - they're being friendly to him (even though they are unaware that he is Evil Personified) ... but it's like his entire LIFE is invalidated by the fact that they have no idea who the hell he is talking about!
Kurt Russell plays that moment great ... kind of with the wry grin of a man almost past his prime, admitting that his time is almost done.
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 2:33 PMHa! I want to see Death Proof...any good?
Posted by: Brendan at January 22, 2008 2:36 PMI freakin' loved it. LOVED. IT.
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 2:39 PMKurt Russell is parodying himSELF - and he is so so funny, like a caricature of tough sexy scary man ... with a huge scar on his face.
And the car chase that makes up the second half of the movie has to be seen to be believed. It's old school To Live and Die in LA car chase. AMAZING!
(Actually, it's older school than that - a throwback to the real car chase scenes in 60s and 70s B- movies, all that Roger Corman stuff, etc. But To Live and Die in LA is my favorite car chase scene ever, which is why I referenced it!!)
I've pretty much given over to the fact that I love Quentin Tarantino to death. I recently happened to watch 'Jackie Brown' again, which I hated the first time. Boy, was I wrong. What a great movie.
Posted by: Brendan at January 22, 2008 2:45 PMYeah - some of the long dialogue scenes didn't work for me in Death Proof - especially not between the FIRST set of girls, who just (in my opinion) didn't have the acting chops to pull it off. When Kurt Russell was involved in their banter, it brought up their game ... it focused them, or something. But there's one long scene in a Mexican restaurant which is the second scene in the movie which totally didn't work (for me).
But the SECOND set of girls (of which the lovely, funny Rosario Dawson is one) definitely, as a group, had more acting chops - and were totally engaging - they could handle the dialogue much better, and I also believed they were friends. I could have watched the 4 of them sit around shooting the shit forever.
But it's the damn car chase at the end .... Wow!!!
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 2:49 PMAlso, Kurt Russell gets a lap dance in a dive bar by one of the girls in the movie, who does it on a dare. Great scene. She's not a stripper, just a regular girl in shorts, flipflops and a T-shirt - I can't even describe why it was my favorite scene, but it was. She has to be talked into it ... which Russell does brilliantly (great dialogue) ...
Anyway. Highly recommended. i didn't see Grindhouse ... just Death Proof.
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 2:52 PMThat sounds like a great moment with Russell. I realized something very important in the last few years. When you're single or have young kids (say 12 and under) you still think your hip to whatever's going on around you in the world of pop culture but once you have kids in their teens (I have three in their teens, one who's six - although to me they all seem around six mentally) you realize how completely and utterly out of touch you are with their culture. But that's not the discovery. The first part of the discovery was realizing, after being put off by it for a short period, that I didn't care. I find their pop culture inane and stupid.
Okay, so you're thinking, "Old fart syndrome." But no it's just the opposite. Apropro of what everyone is saying here you realize that everything has gone topsy turvy from the generation before us. When the sixties and sevenites teens and twentysomethings were developing their own pop culture and rock stars their parents were horrified at what their children liked. The parents identified pop culture with a sense of "straight and arrow" mindsets that their children abandoned. But now, and here's the real discovery that I think we've all come to, is that it's the parent's culture (mine, yours and everyone else here - whether you're actually a parent or not) that is hard edged and subversive and the teens culture is commercial, slick and corporatized.
I always feel like I'm offending my children, not the other way around. My oldest got pretty heavy into drugs for awhile (now he's working steadily and firing up fairly casually instead of obsessively) and the funny thing was that my wife and I (my wife especially) were like, "Goddamn, we did shit ten times harder when we were in our teens." I listen to my thirteen and sixteen year old's music choices and the hardest edgiest most rebellious music is the stuff they listen to from the sixties and seventies, not the new stuff.
Strange days indeed.
Jonathan - very interesting!! My friends with kids say similar things - especially kids reaching middle school, etc.
My friend Beth is so thrilled because her son, on his own, has decided that music of OUR youth - like Queen - is the best music ever made. So when I visit their house, it's like going to one of our high-school slumber parties - only it's her SON playing the music. pretty wild!
Your comment also made me immediately think of Eminem. For me, he is the equivalent (or was - not so much now, he feels like he's "resting" now, waiting to return - hopefully) of someone truly dangerous and important. He, at the top of his game, had to be included in every conversation about music, or awards shows, or anything - he was not just relevant, he was omnipresent, everywhere. It was an unstoppable juggernaut there for a while (I'm a huge Eminem fan. I'd buy a bootleg CD of him rapping his grocery list.) And in that case, for the most part, it was the KIDS who passed him up to their parents ... rather than the other way around. You know, so suddenly you have soccer moms riding around blasting "White America".
And Eminem did not dis that hugely powerful section of his audience - he knew that white tween girls were his major demographic - but then he also got the respect from his rap peers, and giants like Dr Dre.
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 3:01 PMI wonder if teens today don't search out something a little safer seeing as the culture itself is so fractured.
Like, what is there to rebel against? Total anonymity online? Non-existent monolithic culture corporations? Like, are you going to boycott myspace? It just doesn't make sense.
There is no mainstream. It simply doesn't exist. I'm not sure it ever did, but there was a whole economy based upon supposing that it did. The illusion that you were going against that mainstream was quite lucrative throughout the 90's but now it is clearly a charade.
As long as my kid genuinely enjoys what it is he/she is into, I'm fine with it. If they are clearly following a trend or other kids, that might bother me.
Posted by: Brendan at January 22, 2008 3:09 PMWell, now I'm going to have to give Death Proof a chance (if Sheila liked it...).
I think that's a moment we all have (more than once) - and our parents had it and their parents, etc. - the first time you are talking about someone truly famous or a world event or a cultural touchstone to someone at least 15 years your junior and they obviously have no awareness of it or internal references to it AT ALL. Not in a "My mom mentioned that once" way but truly drawing a complete blank.
My High School English teacher (a long long while ago) and I had a wierd moment where we were discussing god knows what book and I related some theme in it to the murder of Kitty Genovese. It turned out that I was the only kid in the class who had heard of her and my teacher clearly had one of those moments. I remember her just staring at us, slack jawed and shocked.
It happened to me for the first time a few years ago. Always feels wierd, but definitely happens with increasing frequency.
Posted by: Marisa at January 22, 2008 3:11 PMRegarding rebellion - My youngest brother (a full decade behind me) joined the football team, went to prayer meetings with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and got really into trendy brand name clothing (he saved his allowance for a very long time to buy a full set of Tommy H bath towels and such. He was 14. I was so confused when I came home to visit) during his teen years. Later he told us that on some level that WAS him rebelling - against his liberal Buddhist / agnostic parents and hardcore punkrock / geeky bibliophile sisters. We had exhausted his other options.
Posted by: Marisa at January 22, 2008 3:15 PMMarisa - about the Kitty Genovese moment: I totally know what you're talking about. I have those moments quite a bit, too! Time passing, the references losing some of their "oomph" ... The awesome thing is the Internet - because you can look up anything immediately! There's more availability to information, so that's definitely a change.
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 3:17 PM"I'd buy a bootleg CD of him rapping his grocery list." Holy crap, I have that! You wouldn't believe the shit he buys.
The Eminem case is a good example of something else along the same lines. When the oldest (he of the Jim Anchower stylings) was listening to him the interesting thing is that it wasn't shocking to us. I'm sure it was to some but for many of us who spent weekends at the 9:30 Club in DC or the now sadly gone CBGB's in NY, hearing Eminem come out of the speakers in my little suburban digs just sounded like hip hop music to me and my wife. Teens today have a much harder time getting their parents to scream, "Turn that noise down!"
And my wife is always being told by them to "Shut UP!" when she starts making bizarre sexual and drug references at the dinner table relating to our youth. So I guess that hasn't changed: We may do it in different ways but parents have always found a way to embarrass their kids - and enjoy the hell out of themselves in the process.
Posted by: Jonathan Lapper at January 22, 2008 3:20 PMMarisa - kinda like Family Ties (oops, there's another reference for a certain age group! Ha!). The hippie parents having Michael Keaton as a son. That WAS his rebellion.
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 3:21 PMExactly!
...and ironically, I bet my baby brother has no idea who Alex P. Keaton is! Totally before his time. :)
Posted by: Marisa at January 22, 2008 3:24 PM"Later he told us that on some level that WAS him rebelling - against his liberal Buddhist / agnostic parents and hardcore punkrock / geeky bibliophile sisters. We had exhausted his other options"
You know I've spent a lot of comment space here today trying to focus my thoughts and that's it right there, perfectly encapsulated. The teens today have to go corporate or mainstream because their parents are completely against it. Our sixteen year old daughter is mortified that we do most of our shopping at thrift stores and I make new furniture for us from old bed slats (long story).
Posted by: Jonathan Lapper at January 22, 2008 3:28 PMI think that's pretty much what a lot of pundits were saying after that John Walker Lindh kid got picked up in Afghanistan. Coming from Marin County parents who probably raised him on the Grateful Dead and smoked his first joint with him, the only way he could rebel was to convert to a brand of fundamentalist Islam. Being good, not doing drugs, and a strict devotion to moralism and Allah was rebellion for him.
Posted by: Emily at January 22, 2008 3:42 PMEmily - yeah, I remember his father saying something like, "I'm just glad he believes in something."
Uhm - ya are? Even that?
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 3:45 PMEmily - do you follow the whole Memphis 3 thing? A lot of that misunderstanding about "goth" culture and heavy metal stuff - and judging people on appearances ("oh, it's gotta be them - cause they wear black lipstick") we've all kind of touched on really comes into play there - stuff that Eminem sings about too - "they blame it on Marilyn [Manson] ... where were the parents at? Middle America - NOW it's a tragedy' ...
I'm thinking about them a bit because they've been in the news a lot recently.
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 3:50 PMGreat piece, Brendan. It reminded me of what Greil Marcus wrote about hearing The Beatles for the first time, in a dorm common room packed with 400 others, watching them on "The Ed Sullivan Show." In his essay, Marcus made reference to "the excitement, the sense of being caught up in something much bigger than one’s own private taste."
A couple of random thoughts based on what folks have written here:
- In the same vein as the Clash/Grandmaster Flash tour story, Prince opened for the Stones in 1981 and practically got booed off the stage in some venues. The "I like this, so I have to hate that" mentality has never made sense to me, and I've always liked what Louis Armstrong said - "there are two kinds of music - good music, and the other kind."
- I have 13 and 17-year old boys, and I've witnessed a phenomenon similar to what Jonathan has experienced - they'd rather work their way through my old vinyl collection (which is close to 2000) than buy something new, because for whatever reason some of the stuff there (they loved Husker Du, for example; haven't quite made it to The Replacements yet) speaks to what they're looking for more than what they're hearing on the radio or their friends are listening to at school.
//"there are two kinds of music - good music, and the other kind."//
hahahaha I love that!!
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 3:59 PMSheila - yeah, I remember being horrified that things like black hair and Stephen King books could be considered evidence in a capital murder trial. I had a lot of goth friends in high school, and while some people in that crowd could be really, really judgemental (oh, the stare downs I used to get on the rare ocassions when I hit the clubs, because I wasn't dressed like the walking dead, I didn't belong...it was annoying. Then those same people would turn around and complain about being treated different because of the way they looked and dressed. It cuts both ways, people).
But there still are a lot of misperceptions. Most of those people are just harmless kids who want to get attention by dressing different. Some of them are really creative people who like it. I think a lot of it boils down to people being afraid of things they don't understand. Just because they look like extras from a zombie movie doesn't mean they want to eat you.
Posted by: Emily at January 22, 2008 4:12 PMJeff - you reminded me of that story Dr.John tells about hearing the Beatles for the first time. He was a young teen and had a beat up turntable with no speakers so you had to use a head set. The set he had was busted and only played one side (can't remember if it was left or right). Anyway, anyone listening to the Beatles knows everything was done in stereo (bass, percussion, etc on the right, vocals, guitar, etc on the left) and so he puts on the album he finally bought because everyone's telling him how great they are. All he hears is drums, bass and muted backing vocals and says to himself, "What the hell? Jesus Christ these guys suck!"
He started giving his friends hell and then they played it for him properly and he got it.
Posted by: Jonathan Lapper at January 22, 2008 4:20 PMJeff - my friend Pat had a similar experience watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show - to the one griel marcus had. As a matter of fact, the next year Pat chose Paul as his confirmation name. Not after "st. paul" but after Paul McCartney - which always makes me laugh. But he just knew ... he knew that he, at least, was changed forever by what he saw and what he heard during that show.
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 4:22 PMOh and a quick side note before my commute home - I've gotten nothing done today at work. Goddamn you internet! Why am I so weak and helpless at the sound of your siren call?
Posted by: Jonathan Lapper at January 22, 2008 4:24 PMI was just looking thru my albums the other day, picking out a couple to go in album frames I got for christmas. New Day Rising was one I chose. LOVE Husker Du-Thats a great post Brendan!!
Posted by: mere at January 22, 2008 5:21 PMConor's new band obsession? I shit you not: Nirvana. If I see that "MTV Unplugged" episode ONE MORE TIME........
Posted by: just1beth at January 22, 2008 6:36 PMBeth - ha! As always, I say: Conor has awesome taste!
I watched that MTV Unplugged Nirvana one too many times myself. I was so obsessed with it - I can barely listen to it anymore. I ruined it by over-listening.
Cant wait for this weekend!!
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 8:32 PMBrendan, well done! Who loves punk more then us punks themselves!
Posted by: King Famous at January 22, 2008 8:58 PMKing Famous - very psyched you've commented ... nice to "meet" you - I've heard a lot about you and I LOVE your album!!
Posted by: red at January 22, 2008 9:03 PMVery well done Brendan.
7-Seconds and Minor Threat, two names I haven't heard in a long time. I remember the dirty looks we would get. They were fuel for our fire.
Great story.
Posted by: PatrickW at January 23, 2008 1:43 PMawesome, bren! because of you, i remember one of the first rock songs where i knew all the lyrics to was 'unsatisfied'. (you played it non-stop). i remember singing it in the living room--i must have been like 8, so you about 16--and you were like, "wait. WHAT are you singing?" as i'm like playing with barbies, making them sing, 'look me in the eye! and tell me that i'm satisfied..." haha...those barbies--who knew they were into punk?!
great writing, though. you are the best.
Another wonderful essay, Brendan. (And great combox discussion as well!) Between your essays and Sheila's postings on Ulysses, I've been thinking about my college days a lot lately. The good parts, for once--even if one of the "good" parts involved being home on spring break recording a radio broadcast to take back with me to school, and the recording caught the first announcement that Kurt Cobain had died. (My friend's immediate response: "Break the tabs off that tape." She was way more conscious of the big picture than I was at the time.)
Posted by: Kate P at January 23, 2008 4:01 PM